Do lots of men do this thing my husband does?

[Dudududodu]

I’ll keep this brief.

My husband has sexted people for basically all of our relationship. I have caught him two or three times in the 20odd years of our relationship. Before apps it was chat rooms. I’ve just found out the true(ish) extent of this behaviour spanning the first 15 years of our relationship. He has met at least one that I know of for casual sex and I stayed with him because I believed he had gone temporarily crazy (I was young/naive).

He claims to not know when the last time he did this was. I have proof of 2014, so that best case scenario. He claims to have suddenly grown up since then. He’s now late 30s.

Is this a normal thing that men do when they are young? I’m not okay with it but can’t get away from the boggle that I’m Overreacting (what he claims)

He’s not going to stop overnight, right? I mean, that’s just unrealistic isn’t it. Why suddenly grow up a few years ago for no reason?

(He’s also had three known affairs)

Please reassure me I’m not crazy. I’m in the process of moving out but I’m wavering.

You wake up and google how can you kill yourself, oh god you need to leave ASAP, Have you got family or friends who can help you,

Nobody thinks he’s a bad guy

That's because he is a manipulative gas lighter.

You deserve so much better. If he loved and respected you he wouldn't behave like this. He knows perfectly well he can treat you like dirt and get away with it because you let him. He takes your love and devotion for granted, and just.doesn't.care.about.you.

Nobody thinks he’s a bad guy. Because you keep his dirty dirty secret a dirty dirty secret. Start telling EVERYONE.

Get a solicitor. Plan your divorce. Stop trying to talk a sleazy sleazeball out of sleazy slimeing.

Just do the same and he will learn his lesson and ask him to be cool the way you have been.

Get another STD test. Please.

You know that he is awful but you have forgotten how great you are. You will feel relieved when you get away. Look forward to the rest of your life without him. Ugh.?

You think he is a catch!!! Jesus he is bottom of the barrel.

I'm so sorry you don't think you deserve better than this but you do. you really do. Start working on yourself and your own self-worth and you will see him with new eyes for what he is.

I rarely post but your update gave me the chills. I think you are being manipulated and it is making you ill. Please get away when you can do so.

Would he care if you had sexted for 20 years, had casual hook-ups and 3 affairs?

He's damaging your mental health, and no wonder.

Noone should have to accept what he's done.

(Women in certain societies have no choice but we're very fortunate in that we do - separation, divorce, maybe in time meet a decent partner if we want to. Grab that good fortune with both hands and get rid of this cheater (and gas lighter/brain washer) before he destroys you.

Op my husband once went into a strip club in a stag do and I almost murdered him, shouted, ended the relationship a few times, threw him out of my house to go home if anything at all came on TV about strip clubs or strippers found one of the only male lap dancing clubs in the UK and went there and had several group and private "dances". Got his agreement never to enter one again in a relationship with me (stag do or not) ..... As I'm sure you can guess, I would not see sexting, web cam, cheating (to any extent), affair as normal or anything I have to accept .. and while I'm quite feisty, I'd say very very few women would.

Overreacting? I'd say under reacting, a d to a massive degree.

Don't let him gaslight and brain wash you ... You know it's wrong, you know it's not decent .. that's why you're do down. As someone said making yourself I'll trying to accept the unacceptable.

The other women don't know what he's like. A serial flirt and cheat (and liar abd gas lighter). They probably won't listen if people try to tell them either ... But they'll find out when he slips up and they'll be angry and miserable for as long as they stay with him.

*so down
*Ill

I wake up most mornings googling ‘how can I kill myself and make it look like an accident’ or some variant of that. Sorry to sound so dramatic but that’s basically the reason I want to leave, so I don’t kill myself

Have you made a proper plan OP?

Is there anyone in RL who knows how you are feeling ? If you could choose one person to tell, who wouLd that be ?

Op you're actually feeling suicidal because of him. He's damaging your mental health to such an extent that your kids, who I'm sure live you to bits and need you, could theoretically lose their mum.

Don't let him do that to you and your kids ... He's a fucking scum bag, fuck him.

Some of my friends are starting to dislike him but I try not to say too much to them as I don’t want to be too one sided.

I assume you don't have a revolver at your disposal that you could shoot yourself in the foot with, so why don't you stand in your kitchen with a big frozen ham or leg of lamb and drop it on your foot instead? A chicken would do in a pinch.

Are there actually two sides to this?
I feel bad for bringing up stuff from years ago because I chose to stay.
You say you are complicit because of choosing to stay, but do you honestly believe that you must keep on absorbing the abuse he is dishing out because of this?
You need to examine the concept of choice and the impact of this word's meaning to you in your life.

These two other thoughts of yours need sorting out with a therapist too:
(1) I feel bad because I have tried and failed to forgive him.

(2) I honestly believed I was big enough to overcome it.

You are suffering greatly from a very misplaced and warped sense of pride in yourself that has nothing to do with self esteem or genuine confidence. It's pride that comes from believing you are going to receive the imaginary approval of a source outside of yourself if you can silence the voice inside that says 'But wait, what about me?' You have some narrative in your head about your role in a relationship that must be identified and dismantled if you are to survive, emotionally and psychologically.

The disconnect between being some sort of a 'good wife' (according to someone else's definition) and the reality of your relationship is causing you immense distress to the point of thinking about suicide.

He's not going to be any different with any other women; I'm sure the relationship will appear to go well for a while until they start finding stuff, they might even continue for a while then while the woman told herself she doesnf have absolute proof or tries to forgive it things, but sooner or later she'll be as miserable and down and insecure as that behaviour would make any woman. They'll either leave or they'll stay and be miserable and get more a d more damaged by it (their happiness, their security, their send esteem etc).

On the minute off chance that he doesn't repeat this long term, habitual behaviour, it really doesn't matter .. because this is how he's acted with you and it's unforgivable, unacceptable etc. and he's responsible for breaking up.his family. Noone but him.

The feeling you have of feeling a bit sick by the thought of women supposedly lining up and his happy life without you is 100% natural. It's also not going to happen like that.
If you get out the relief you will feel will completely overcome all of that and he will continue to be able to fool some if the people some of the time. But he will never be in an honest, real relationship. Because he can't.
All I will say is line your financial and legal ducks up first. Be in control of what happens, how it happens, and when it happens,
Tell your friends. You can NOT protect him. You've lived with so many lies for so long, It's time for the truth. You'll see. Once you have the truth and he's not fucking gaslighting you and you don't have to think about what he's doing you'll see. It will be like the sun suddenly came out

Oh my God I thought you were going to say "eat with his mouth open" or ask "will I Hoover the sitting room for you?"

Sexting? No way. No way.

Ok, so you stay with him, put up with it all, then the kids grow up, leave home, you're older, he has an affair with a younger woman and no longer needs to stay for the kids either and boom. You end up alone having wasted your life waiting for him to stop acting like a dog on heat. It won't happen, grab your life and respect back now, and if he finds someone else, pity her not envy her.

You have a world of options between staying and being abused on the one hand and killing yourself on the other, @Dudududodu.

Ask yourself who is benefiting from your silence. Ask yourself who is hurt to the point of contemplating suicide.

Ask yourself what is keeping you from talking to friends.
It's a big step to contemplate, but you need to get back into therapy and ask for your therapist's support as you experience all the feelings that will come with opening up.

I would be willing to bet money that your husband has propositioned many of your friends and also the girlfriends and wives of his mates. Once you start talking you are going to hear more details about your husband's life than you knew before.

A good first step op might be to work out finances - what will your assets be (roughly) after divorce (equity, pensions), what will your income be (Child maintenance, child benefit, any universal credit, salary (remember you'll get 85% of any child are paid if single working mum as long as it's a registered daycare or child minder) etc.

Would you want to stay in the house, could you afford it etc.

There's lots of info online, citizens advice are very good for going though it with you, you could possibly get a (phone?) Appointment with family law solicitor..some do first consultatation free, check beforehand.

I have thought that maybe the things he does are abusive. I’ve read Lundy Bancroft. This isn’t my first time posting here. But he says I abuse him, that I keep bringing up the affairs and it’s sadistic, and that I metaphorically beat him over the head. And I think he might be right. Which weirdly is also a reason to leave. He says he wants a divorce at least once a week, usually in a row. Or he says fuck off out of his life. Or tells me I’ve ruined his life. I know that’s abusive, so I have no doubt that he’s not a kind man. The question is, do I deserve it for being a horrible person? That’s why I’m stuck. For every bad thing I moan about, he turns it back on to me. Or he says I’m projecting or deflecting. And to be honest I’m so confused now that I don’t know why this happens. He says I love arguing.

I’ve put done a holding fee on a house. But I’ve dragged me feet for the last week because we sort of made up. He said that he didn’t want a divorce after all. For every 5 times he demands a divorce, he takes it back after.

It that’s not really why I’m here. I just need to know that I’m not throwing my marriage away for some tiny misdemeanours that happened years ago. And that actually it’s okay to be upset

OP this is so sad.

He has stripped you of your dignity.

He is destroying you mentally.

Your kids will grow up in a vile environment. They will know the older they get. They won't respect you.

He could literally have a girlfriend in the open and you would accept it.

Also, for the people that think he propositions friends and wives of friends, or that he’s openly sleazy, he’s really not. He’s very outwardly shy. He 100% believes that I’m abusive and have autism. He would never be open about his womanising. It’s all very very covert

I haven’t rang a lawyer. We split up before so I am in a worse position now because he has learnt and made notes. He wants 50 . 50 custody and I suppose I have to accept that even though it kills me. He can afford to buy me out of the house. My parents are helping me with rend. I’ve signed up for child benefit.

We had a row yesterday where he yet again told me I’d destroyed his life and that he wanted a divorce. But today he’s not said a word. Do I just proceed with the rental place and then say ‘I’m leaving’ or do I try to talk to him. If I try to talk it 100% ends in a row and I’m scared of bringing it up.

It's only normal for dickheads.